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Snipe Pie
Parboil the birds in stock and a little white wine, seasoned with a grated onion, pepper, salt, and nutmeg; make a forcemeat of three pounds of beef, which scrape fine, likewise a quarter of a pound of fat pork; pound and mix these well together with a little butter and the crumb of two rolls soaked in bouillon; make rather thinner than for soup-balls; season with grated onion, pounded pepper, allspice, cloves, mushrooms, and gherkins chopped fine; and thin the whole with some of the broth in which the snipes were parboiled. Line a dish with this forcemeat; put in the birds with a little of the soup and a small piece of butter; cover with a thick layer of forcemeat; bake an hour and a half. Serve with a sauce as follows. Half a pint of soup, a gill of white wine, a little water, and a piece of butter rolled in flour, stirred till smooth; when it begins to boil, slice in pickled gherkins or lemon. A pie may be made in the same way with young ducks or pigeons, and eaten hot or cold. Probable cost of snipes, from 2s. to 3s. per brace.
A Victorian raised-crust-free game pie: the birds are encased in a thick beef and pork forcemeat rather than pastry, which does the work of both crust and gravy. A few of the original's terms need translating before you start.
- The hinge: forcemeat consistency"Rather thinner than for soup-balls" means a paste loose enough to spread with a spatula but stiff enough to hold a wall against the side of the dish. Too stiff and it cracks and dries; too loose and it slumps off the birds. Aim for the texture of thick sausage meat slackened with a few spoonfuls of stock.
- Getting snipeSnipe is a wild migratory bird. In the UK it is legally shootable in season and sold by game dealers; in the US, Wilson's snipe may be hunted but cannot be bought or sold, so a supermarket cook has no source. The recipe's own alternatives, young duck or squab, are the practical route.
- "Soup" and "bouillon"Both here mean stock or broth rather than a finished soup. The parboiling liquor becomes the moistening for the forcemeat and the base of the sauce, so keep it and do not salt it hard at the start.
- Parboil brieflySnipe weigh only 3-4 oz each and are all breast. Five minutes in the simmering stock and wine is enough to set them; a long parboil before an hour and a half in the oven leaves nothing but dry fibre. Duck or pigeon can take ten to twelve minutes.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given because the book assumes a coal range. Bake at 350F, covered for the first hour so the forcemeat does not crust and split, then uncovered to colour.
- "Scrape fine"Scraping was how a Victorian cook made a smooth meat paste without a machine: the flesh is dragged across with the back of a knife, leaving sinew behind. A food processor does the same job, but pulse rather than run it, and keep the beef and pork cold.
- A gill, and other measuresA gill is a quarter of a pint, 5 fl oz in British measure, so the sauce is about 10 fl oz of stock to 5 fl oz of white wine plus a little water. The crumb of two rolls is roughly 2 cups of soft crumbs; the butter rolled in flour is a beurre manié of about 1 tbsp each.
- Scale and yieldThree pounds of beef and 1/4 lb pork make a great deal of forcemeat, enough to line and cover a large deep dish; the recipe gives no number of birds or servings. Halve the forcemeat for a family-sized pie.
- ServingThe recipe notes that the duck or pigeon version may be eaten hot or cold. Cold, slice it in wedges; hot, spoon the gherkin or lemon sauce over each portion at the table so the acid stays sharp.
Snipe were among the most prized small game birds of the nineteenth-century British table, valued because they are lean, dark-fleshed and strongly flavoured, and traditionally roasted whole and undrawn on toast. A pie like this one is the opposite approach: the birds are buried in a rich beef and pork forcemeat, seasoned with allspice, cloves, mushrooms and gherkins. The closing "probable cost" note is characteristic of the Victorian household cookery dictionaries, and a price of 2s. to 3s. per brace points to a treat rather than an economy dish: game arrived at market seasonally through dealers, and a pie that could be eaten hot or cold made the most of an expensive, short-lived supply.